Jean Béraud

G. von Bodem
M. Morel
Galerie Brame & Lorenceau, Paris, 1986
Private Collection, New York
Noortman Gallery, Netherlands
Acquired from the above in 1999

Paris, Grand Palais, XIIIe Biennale international des antiquaires, 1986

S. Haitay, “Un événement, La XIIIe Biennale des antiquaires,” Le Figaro, September 20, 1986, p. 196, illustrated
Patrick Offenstadt, Jean Béraud 1849-1935: The Belle Époque: A Dream of Times Gone By, Paris, 1999, p. 235, no. 305, illustrated

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.:This work is in lovely condition. The canvas has a light lining applied with a non-wax adhesive. The paint layer is clean and shows no abrasion or weakness. Under ultraviolet light, a spot or two of retouching can be seen on the extreme right side of the shrubbery in the upper right, and three or four tiny retouches in the sky. The work should be hung as is.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

While Béraud is well-known for painting Parisians in bustling scenes of urban life among the commotion of theater, cafés and couturiers, Un Figaro de Rêve places this subject in the city’s idyllic, provincial suburbs. In the late nineteenth century, a rural refuge became almost as important to fashionable members of society as a hôtel particulier in the city, or a choice table at a popular café. The recreational exodus of Parisians to the countryside necessitated the creation of diversionary infrastructure outside of the city such as hotels, restaurants, and parks, and the development of the suburbs played as crucial of a role in French culture as it did in French painting.

Accessibility of the countryside provided opportunities for artists who wished to pursue plein-air painting. Perhaps influenced by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and the artists of Barbizon, Impressionist artists like Claude Monet chose to paint outdoors in order to observe and more accurately convey the effects of light on the landscape. By 1872, Monet moved his family to Argenteuil, a suburb on the Seine to the northwest of Paris, which was popular among urbanites and became a hive of artistic activity among the Impressionists. Monet painted some of his most characteristic paintings here, including Le pont d’Argenteuil (1874, Musée d’Orsay, Paris), Woman with a Parasol - Madame Monet and Her Son (1875, National Gallery of Art, Washington), as well as Springtime (1872, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore) which also depicts his wife, Camille Doncieux, serenely reading under a tree.

In Argenteuil, Monet was frequently joined by his contemporaries Édouard Manet, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, with whom he frequently worked side by side. Renoir also painted Mme. Monet in Argenteuil, seen absorbed in a book in Madame Monet Reading (1872, Sterling and Francine Clark Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts), as well as in Madame Monet reading “Le Figaro” (1872, Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, fig. 1) in a casual pose reminiscent of Manet’s Olympia, looking up from her newspaper to engage the viewer directly. The choice to include a copy of Le Figaro, rather than an enriching novel, situates the scene in a particular moment in time.

Because Béraud was friends with these artists and a member of the most prominent social and literary circles in Paris, he would certainly have known their works. Although the exact date is not known, Un Figaro de Rêve was likely produced early in Béraud’s career, between 1872-1885, and vividly relates to the work of the Impressionists in style as well as subject. Béraud was already quite adept at painting outside of the studio (he traveled in a custom-made cab from which he observed and recorded city life), but the dappled brushstrokes and sun-drenched palette of the present work, and his careful observation of the landscape with the winding Seine beyond, are clearly indicative of the Impressionists’ influence.